07/06/2018 – Ephemeris – Learn about meteorites tonight

Ephemeris for Friday, July 6th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 26 minutes, setting at 9:30, and it will rise tomorrow at 6:04. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 2:06 tomorrow morning.

Meteorites will be the topic given by Joe Brooks local meteorite expert and collector at this evening’s meeting of the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society at 8 p.m. at Northwestern Michigan College’s Rogers Observatory. He even has a meteorite of a type called a Howardite that the Dawn spacecraft that orbited the asteroid Vesta has determined to be from the there. Today we are all too aware that stones and even bigger asteroids can collide with the Earth, so studying meteorites and the asteroids they come from is important. Everyone is welcome. Also at 9 p.m. there will be a star party at the observatory. The observatory is located south of Traverse City on Birmley Road between Garfield and Keystone roads.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

A Howardite meteorite is a chip off this old block.

Looking back at Vesta as Dawn headed off to Ceres. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA